There stood Mr. Chipperton, holding a lighted match, which he had just struck. He was looking at something on the wall. As we ran in, he turned and smiled, and was just going to say something, when Corny threw herself into his arms, and his wife, squeezing by, took him around his neck so suddenly that his hat flew off and bumped on the floor, like an empty tin can. He always wore a high silk hat. He made a grab for his hat, and the match burned his fingers.
"Aouch!" he exclaimed, as he dropped the match. "What's the matter?"
"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed his wife. "How dreadful to leave you here! Shut up alone in this awful place! But to think we have found you!"
"No trouble about that, I should say," remarked Mr. Chipperton, going over to the other side of the den after his hat. "You haven't been gone ten minutes, and it's a pretty straight road back here."
"But how did it happen?" "Why did you stay?" "Weren't you frightened?" "Did you stay on purpose?" we all asked him at pretty much one and the same time.
"I did stay on purpose," said he; "but I did not expect to stay but a minute, and had no idea you would go and leave me. I stopped to see what in the name of common sense this place was made for. I tried my best to make some sort of an observation out of this long, narrow loop-hole, but found I could see nothing of importance whatever, and so I made up my mind it was money thrown away to cut out such a place as this to so little purpose. When I had entirely made up my mind, I found, on turning around, that you had gone, and although I called I received no answer.
"Then I knew I was alone in this place. But I was perfectly composed. No agitation, no tremor of the nerves. Absolute self-control. The moment I found myself deserted, I knew exactly what to do. I did precisely the same thing that I would have done had I been left alone in the Mammoth Cave, or the Cave of Fingal, or any place of the kind.
"I stood perfectly still!
"If you will always remember to do that," and he looked as well as he could from one to another of us, "you need never be frightened, no matter how dark and lonely a cavern you may be left in. Strive to reflect that you will soon be missed, and that your friends will naturally come back to the place where they saw you last. Stay there! Keep that important duty in your mind. Stay just where you are! If you run about to try and find your way out, you will be lost. You will lose yourself, and no one can find you.
"Instances are not uncommon where persons have been left behind in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, and who were not found by searching parties for a day or two, and they were almost invariably discovered in an insane condition. They rushed wildly about in the dark; got away from the ordinary paths of tourists; couldn't be found, and went crazy,—a very natural consequence. Now, nothing of the kind happened to me. I remained where I was, and here, you see, in less than ten minutes, I am rescued!"